


No Space to Rent in This Town

by Tabithian



Series: Light the Path [15]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dimension Travel, F/M, Genderswap, M/M, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 19:36:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4577256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Jesus, Goldie. When you screw up, you really screw up, don't you?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Space to Rent in This Town

**Author's Note:**

> yozoraarashi asked for DickTim genderswap AU, which I read as always-a-girl AU? (Tim is Thea in this because I am terrible with naming things.)
> 
> And then! (Oh, and then.)
> 
> I decided to do pull the Red X storyline from the Teen Titans animated series into the comics, and also mess around with ALL the timelines. (And throw in dimensional travel, why not.)
> 
> Jason doesn't die, but becomes Red Hood because he doesn't appreciate the Doctor Mid-Nite jokes, and also has his Outlaws. Tim doesn't become Robin, and other things that are spoiler-ish for the fic, IDK, I blame the cold medicine, sorry. (Also/or, this is vaguely an AU of the Glitch in the System AU, because I cannibalize my own works.)

“Jesus, Goldie. When you screw up, you really screw up, don't you?”

Dick throws a glare over his shoulder at Jason, jabs his elbow back, _sharp_ almost as an afterthought, smirks at the quiet grunt of pain.. 

“Not helping,” he hisses, turns his attention back to the floor of the S.T.A.R. Labs laboratory and the slender figure flipping through the laser net with ease.

“Whoever he is, he's good,” Jason says, admiration in his voice. “Like. Freakishly good.”

That's what worries Dick, because their thief, the one who's been targeting S.T.A.R. Labs facilities all over the country is wearing one of Dick's biggest mistakes.

The thief pauses, just the other side of the laser net, cocks his head and reaches out a hand to the glass.  
There's a component to some kind of device Dick doesn't know all the details to on inside, and their thief has managed to steal several other components over the last few weeks.

Dick's eyes narrow as they hold their hand a hairsbreadth from the glass, other hand going to his belt, the switch that activates the teleporter.

There's a beat, a pause, and then the thief presses the button, hand darting out almost too fast to see.

When he blurs back into view, the case is empty and the component is in the thief's hand.

“Wow,” Jason says, crouching beside him. “Did you know the suit could do that?”

Dick closes his eyes, nods.

“In theory.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Dick looks at Jason. “It means that if you don't time things right, you lose a hand. Or worse. It's a teleportation device, not a phase shifter.”

Jason cocks his head. “You tried it.”

Dick.

“I - “

“Christ, I knew you were stupid, but that - “

Jason pulls his head back, mouth turning down. “Did Bruce know?”

Dick winces, remembers what Bruce had to say about that entire debacle – or more to the point – what he _hadn't_ said.

“I'm pretty sure, yeah,” Dick says  
He didn't have a lot of time to practice before he was forced to put the suit into play. Unsure he'd be able to pull that little trick successfully with the unpredictable nature of the Titans, too much of a risk things would go disastrously wrong.

The sound of someone clearing their throat, disconcerting with the added touch of a voice modulator behind it.

When Dick and Jason look down it's to see the thief looking up at them. 

“Looking for me, boys?”

“Shit.”

Dick slides a look at Jason.

“What?”

“Watch your language.”

Because Bruce isn't here right now to remind him, and Jason's being an insufferable brat.

Jason snorts.

“You don't get to tell me what to do, dumbass. Isn't that your suit down there?” 

Dick opens his mouth for a retort, but before he can the thief activate the teleporter and pops into place next to them.

Turns his head to look at Dick, and _laughs_ , before jumping and activating the teleporter again, reappearing close to the opening of the ventilation shaft he and Jason had used to sneak into the lab.

“Thanks for the suit, it works like a charm!”

Dick and Jason scramble after him, but the thief is fast and tricky, snaps out smoke pellets behind him and other little tricks.

“Christ, is this _glue_?”

Dick ignores Jason trying to wipe whatever the thief hit him with off his face, his chest, and pushes past him out onto the roof. Looks around before his eyes land on the thief standing at the edge of the roof, ready to jump.

The thief looks back at Dick and laughs again, sketches a little bow. “See you around!” 

Dick runs to catch him, but he's too slow.

Catches a glimpse of dark gray in the darker shadows of a distant roof, flash of white as the thief glances back briefly.

“So,” Jason says, walking up to him, flicking bits of drying glue or whatever the thief used away. “What are you planning on telling Bruce?”

Dick sighs, turns to get a good look at Jason.

There are little splotches of glue, some kind of industrial strength adhesive at any rate, all over him. He's managed to get the worst of it off, but.

There's dust and lint and all kinds of disgusting things stuck to him.

“You look terrible.”

Jason raises an eyebrow.

“And Red X just stole something from our dad's company.”

Dick winces. 

“Yeah, there's that, isn't there.”

Bruce is not going to be happy.

(Good thing he's off on a training trip with Damian, then.)

********

The thing is, Dick was certain he'd buried that stupid suit. Hidden away and locked behind all kinds of Bat-approved security. (He would have burned it years ago, but. Xenothium.)

But then just over a year ago the alarms in the vault it was sealed in sounded and when he got there, the only thing left was a piece of paper with a vivid red x and a drawing of a grinning Red X mask. 

Up until the last few weeks, almost a month, there had only been a handful of sightings of the thief. Small time things, mostly. Nothing really worrying, not like this.

Components of a device the Justice League had confiscated and given to S.T.A.R. Labs to study. Something the Justice League had felt was too dangerous to leave assembled, and now it looks like the thief – Red X – is trying to. 

Do what with it? Reassemble it for himself or sell it to the highest bidder?

And there will be one, Dick knows.

Why? 

Why go from petty thefts and harassing Gotham and Bludhaven's vigilantes to this?

“Wow, brood much?”

Dick tips his head back, looks up to see Jason looking over the back of the chair at him.

“I'm a Bat, what do you expect?”

Jason sighs, says, “You're missed your girlfriend's phone call, you know. She sounded a little lonely.”

Dick makes a face, hunches down in the computer chair. “She's not,” he shakes his head. “She's not my girlfriend, how many times do I have to tell you?”

They're friends. 

That's. That's all.

“I know you've been saying that since I was in short-pants,” Jason says, so amused. 

Dick splutters. “She was in elementary school then, Jason!”

“Eh,” Jason says, carefully not laughing at him. “You know how smart she is, I think she skipped a few grades, didn't she? Definitely middle school student.”

And Dick was – Oh, God, no, he's not going to think about this, _no_.

“Oh my God, Jason, no, we're not having this conversation.”

Jason snorts, gives the computer chair a push that spins Dick around to face him.

“You're an idiot. Have you been down here all night watching those damn videos?”

Dick looks up at him.

Jason looks back.

Dick raises an eyebrow.

Jason sighs, tries to spin the chair around again just to be a brat, but Dick's got his feet planted firmly now.

“Such a dumbass,” Jason mutters, leans past Dick to key up some of the security camera from S.T.A.R. Labs they were able to get on the Batcomputer's monitors 

Dick watches Red X slip past the security measures without faltering once, making it look easy.

Jason whistles low, when Red X works his way through another laser net, glances down at Dick. 

“He's really, really good. You thinking about recruiting him for the Titans?” Jason asks. “Cause if you're not I want him.”

Okay, no. 

That would be a terrible idea.

“No, Jason,” Dick says. “No.”

Jason already has Roy and Kory. Adding Red X to the mix would be a really, really terrible idea. 

“Why don't we ask him when we catch the guy,” Jason says, challenge.

Dick squints at Jason. 

“What can I say,” Jason says, shrugs. “We can have our own theme, it'll be great. “

********

Thea calls the manor twice a week to catch up on all the news, gossip she's missing while she's at college across the country. 

Bickering and bantering with Jason because those two have the oddest relationship Dick's ever seen, or trading weird little in-jokes with Alfred, which. No, okay, those two have the weirdest relationship Dick's ever seen.

Will talk to Bruce when he's around about. Well, Dick isn't really sure what they talk about, just that Bruce tends to come away from those conversations looking mildly baffled, bewildered. (Fond.)

Damian won't talk to her himself, but is more than willing to snip and snipe at her while Jason or Dick are talking to her, passing along little messages to her and pretending he's not. (Crush, Jason thinks and Dick secretly agrees with, big, big crush.)

 _“Hey, Dick,”_ Thea says, voice going soft. _“Missed you the other day.”_

Dick winces, flaps a hand at Jason to try to get him to leave which works as well as expected. 

“Yeah, sorry, I got caught up in work.”

Thea laughs. _”Working overtime on writing out traffic tickets again?”_

“Okay, wow, no. I can see Jason got to you again about that, but no, I was not.”

Jason preens, buffs his nails on his shirt, _smirks_

Another one of Thea's quiet little laughs, and Jason's right, she does sound a little lonely. Sad.

“You get my e-mail?”

There's a pause, and Thea sighs. 

_“It's really tempting,”_ she says, laughs again. _“I can tell you put a lot of work into it.”_

Well. Tam did most of the work for him, made the calls to the right people and all of that to make sure this was a thing that would work, that Thea could transfer to one of the colleges in Gotham and earn her degree here.

 _“I made a promise to my parents,”_ Thea says, voice going that certain kind of tight whenever she mentions them. _“And, I. Something's come up here, I have things I need to take care of before I could.”_

Dick sits up at that, the weird tone in her voice. 

“Is everything okay?”

Jason leans forward, scowl starting to form on his face.

Thea laughs, and it sounds all wrong, and Dick - 

_“It's. I guess you could call it family business, Dick. Nothing's. It's fine, really. I can handle it.”_

And that.

That's not.

“Thea.”

Jason crowds Dick, reaches for the phone.

Dick sighs, plants his hand in Jason's face and shoves him back. “Call us if you need help, okay? No matter what.”

 _”I promise you'll be the first person I call if I get in over my head, okay?”_ Thea says. “But there's nothing to worry about, and tell Jason to stop making that face, it'll get stuck like that and then what would poor Roy do?”

It's a decent attempt at deflection, but this is Thea, and Dick's known her for a very long time.

 _Dick, trust me, okay? I can handle this,_ Thea says.

“You know how we are,” Dick says, turns so his back is to Jason. “We worry about you.”

Thea sighs, fond. 

_I know, Dick. I worry about you idiots too, okay?_

Dick grins, says, “Us? What kind of trouble could we possibly get into?”

********

With Bruce out of town, Dick can't focus all of his attention on the Red X problem, no matter how badly he wishes he could.

Jason's pitching in, and Dick pretends he doesn't notice Roy and Kory doing their share because Bruce is just a tad bit territorial. Cass and Steph always have their end of things down, so.

That leaves Dick and rumors of drug dealers and an address Barbara gives him, something like worry in her voice when she asks if he's sure he can handle things on his own, and Dick

“Hey, it's me,” he tells her, with a big, big grin.

“Oh my God,” Barbara says, tries to snatch the paper the address is written on away from him. “No, don't. Why would you say that?”

********

Dick isn't expecting to run into Red X here, because.

_Because._

He looks up at the sound of breaking glass, sees a slim shadow sneaking past the thugs keeping an eye on him.

They've gotten bored, restless. 

Careless.

Watches as the one doing a circuit of the main floor gets yanked behind a freight container, the shadow slipping out from cover a few moments later. 

His eyes narrow when the figure passes under an overhead light on his way to take out a second thug and he gets a clear look at them. 

Red X pauses, looks up at him for a moment, shakes his head and goes back to clearing the room. Fast, clean, no unnecessary force.

“You look like you have a problem,” Red X says, leans against the console. “Bad night?”

“Nah, just, you know. Hanging around,” Dick says, _grins_.

Red X snorts, turns his head to examine the console. “You sure?”

Red X brushes his fingers over the lever that will lower the crane suspended over the main room of the warehouse. (That Dick may or may not be hanging from.)

Looks up at Dick.

And Dick.

“Well,” he says. “I wouldn't say no to a little help.”

Red X laughs. “Kind of figured you'd say that.”

(Dick really needs to learn not to say or do things to tempt fate, because, well.)

“How did you even manage this?” Red X asks. “I mean. Really.”

Dick sighs, looks up at his bound hands. “They got the jump on me,” he says.

Red X goes still, looks up at Dick, something like disapproval in his body language.

“And where's Hood?”

Dick's eyes narrow. 

“Busy,” he says. “Gotham's a big city.”

Red X snorts, pulls the lever that lowers the crane, positions it so Dick's feet touch down on level flooring rather than the jumble of broken and shattered packing crates from the fight. 

He watches Red X drop down to the main floor, stride smooth and even, predatory almost as he walks up to Dick.

“Next time you want to tangle with these guys,” he says, leans in so his face is inches from Dick's. “Bring backup, you're lucky they didn't kill you.”

“You sound like you're worried about me.”

Red X pulls back, makes a little sound of amusement as he pulls out one of his shuriken and goes to work on the restraints around Dick's wrists. 

“Hey,” he says, tilts his head to look sidelong at Dick. “Who would I go to if there's a problem with the suit?”

Dick.

He.

Red X steps back, tucks the shuriken away.

“You should be able to get out of that on your own in a few minutes,” Red X says, pats Dick's cheek. “I'm sure you understand why I won't be sticking around for that.”

Dick opens his mouth to say something, anything, but the windows over the catwalk shatters and Jason and his Outlaws pour through them.

Red X laughs, turns to look at Dick 

“Look at that,” he says, “it's the cavalry.”

“Red X - “

Red X snaps out a smoke pellet and disappears, leaving Dick alone to face an obviously angry Jason and his team.

Fantastic.

********

“Okay, look, moron - “

“Hey,” Dick says.

Jason leans in, pokes Dick on the chest, _hard_. “Shut up, morons don't get to talk right now.”

Dick looks to Roy, Kory, but they're no help.

Roy looks like he wants to knock some sense into him, and Kory - 

Yeah, no. 

“Jay - “

“Do I need to call Bruce?” Jason asks, playing dirty. “Because I will, I so will. I will call him up and tell him you're being an idiot, how's that?”

Pretty terrible, actually.

“You're being ridiculous, Jason.”

Jason throws his hands up in the air, looks to Roy and Kory, back to Dick.

“Red X saved you,” Jason says, pokes Dick again. “ _Red X_.” 

“I know,” Dick says. “Kind of weird, right?”

Up to this point Red X has made a point of not being where they are, avoiding contact, and tonight he decides to break the pattern? Put himself at risk to help Dick out?

“Don't you dare,” Jason says.

“Don't what?”

Jason sighs, rubs a hand over his face. “Don't turn this into a thing, okay?”

Dick.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

********

Thea sends an email to Dick, texts the others that she won't be able to call them that week, work and classes and whatever family crisis she's managed to find on the other side of the country.

“Dick - “

“No, Jason,” Dick says, and it's a struggle not to suit up, slide into the Batplane's pilot seat for this.

“She promised she'd call us if she needed help.”

And, granted.

Thea probably had Dick and Jason in mind, not Nightwing and Red Hood, but that's just a guess. 

“You know how stubborn she is!”

Thea rivals Bruce for stubbornness.

“Jason.”

“Oh my God, why is everyone in this family so stupid?”

Dick grins, a little lopsided. “I ask myself that question every day, Jason, every day.”

********

There's something just the slightest bit off.

“Jason, hey, Jay. Come look at this.”

Jason heaves a sigh. Tosses his tablet down because he's still irritated at the situation with Thea, and to be honest, so is Dick, but.

There are other things to worry about too.

“I thought I told you not to make this into a thing?”

Dick grins.

Big, wide.

_Sunny._

“Oh, Jesus, what. Knock that off, you asshole. It's creepy.”

“Hurtful,” Dick says, grabs Jason's arm before he can escape. “But to make it up to me, tell me what you see.”

Jason slowly tins his head to look down at him, eyebrow going up.

“On the screen, Jason. The screen.”

Another overly dramatic sigh, and then Jason's shoving Dick back into his chair, leaning forward to watch the video playing on the screens.

“Okay, now look at this one,” Dick says, pulls up another video. 

Waits.

“Huh,” Jason say, glances at Dick. “You might not be completely crazy.”

“Thanks,” Dick says, elbows Jason for a little room. “Okay, so what about these two?”

Dick pulls up two more videos, sets them to play side by side.

“These from the S.T.A.R. Labs facilities Red X hit last week?”

“Yeah,” Dick says, settles back into the computer chair, hands steepled. “You see the time stamps?”

Jason cock his head, eyes narrowing. 

“He hit them at the same time.”

“And they were in two different states.”

Jason swings around to look at him.

Dick shrugs. “I know, right?”

It should be impossible, but.

So should a lot of things in their lives.

********

There really isn't a set pattern to Red X's movements, but.

“We meet again,” Dick says.

Red X goes so carefully still.

“So we do,” he says.

There's a lot of silence.

Dick starting at Red X.

Red X staring at Dick

Dick sighs. “Why are you doing this?”

Red X shrugs. “I'm a thief,” he says, like it should be obvious. “I steal things.”

Dick would buy it, if it weren't for the fact that Red X has helped them in the past. Gone out of his way to help them.

“I don't believe that.”

“Believe what you want to,” Red X says, points at the glass case behind Dick. “I'm here for that.”

Dick - 

Red X throws down a smoke pellet, activates the teleporter and Dick's reaching through empty space, Red X's laughter in his ear.

Spins around, hand out-flung and managed to snag the trailing end of the Red X's cape, but he activates the teleporter again, too soon, and it's like grasping smoke.

“X!”

Red X is at the small platform with the case, looks back at Dick and activates the teleporter a third time to grab the component, drops heavily to the floor a few feet shy of Dick, breathing hard.

“Bad idea,” Red X murmurs, voice strained.

There's a crack in the mask, deep, the voice modulator shorting out, going staticky.

The teleporter wasn't designed to take that kind of train, needs a few minutes to cool down in between uses, or there are consequences. 

Dick throws himself forward, Red X looking up too slow to react, to evade. 

“Gotcha,” Dick says, pinning him.

Red X laughs, tired, pained. 

“For now,” he agrees.

Dick smiles, ready to retort when his earpiece crackles to life, Jason's voice coming through.

_”We have a problem.”_

Dick frowns as Red X cocks his head to the side, like he's listening to something.

“Hood?”

_”Red X is here.”_

That is the opposite of a problem, is the reason they'd split up, actually. Dick headed to this facility while Jason went to another to wait for Red X to strike, probability on their side in this.

“That was the plan, Hood.”

There's the unmistakable sound of a gunshot, Jason's pained grunt before the earpiece goes dead.

“Hood?”

Under his hands Red X goes so very still, barely breathing.

Dick looks down at him.

“What's going on?”

Red X laughs. Surges up, headbutts Dick, mask falling apart under the force of it and uses the moment of surprise to break free, scrambles to his feet and puts a little distance between them, holds a hand up, _wait_.

Dick reels back, looks up, and freezes, because - 

Pale skin and black hair falling into blue eyes.

 _Familiar_ blue eyes.

“Thea?”

This. 

What.

He's known Thea for years, ever since her family move out of Gotham proper and they became neighbors. Have been...friends, or at least Dick thought they were. (Thought they might have been more, in time, because _Thea_.)

She's supposed to be at college on the West Coast, not. 

Not _this._

“What the hell is going on?”

Thea sighs, raises a hand to her face, the small line of blood from a slice she must have gotten when the mask broke.

“Hey, Dick,” she says, rueful, guilty.

_What._

“What is going on?”

Thea winces, bends to gather the broken pieces of the mask. 

Of _Red X's_ mask.

“It's a long story?”

Dick's hands clench, words caught in his throat because - 

Closes his eyes, lets out his breath.

“I don't have time for this,” he says, opens his eyes again and looks at Thea.

“You do if you want to help Jason,” she says, holding herself cautious, wary. “Trust me, you go after him on your own, no one's walking out.”

Oh. _Oh._

“Why should I trust you, you're a thief, aren't you? Out for number one and all that.”

Red X was very clear on that point. So very clear.

A heavy sigh from Thea.

“My...my _partner_ is in trouble too, Dick. We need to work together if we want to save them.”

Dick frowns at the odd little hesitation, but.

“How do I know your partner isn't the one causing the trouble?”

Thea _looks_ at him, and that's so painfully familiar Dick has to look away.

“Oh, if only you knew,” Thea says, voice dry. 

A pause, Thea moving closer. “Dick, we need to work together if we want to see them alive again.”

Dick shakes his head, looks up at her. “Give me the component, then we can call a truce.”

********

“We need to make a stop first,” Thea says, eyeing the Batplane with something like awe.

“We don't have time - “

“Nightwing,” Thea says, the first time she's called Dick that. “We have time.”

Oh, that's just the tiniest but suspicious

“How do you know?”

Thea waves a hand at Dick. “You have the component. Trust me, we have time.”

********

Thea takes them to some kind of safe house.

“Is that what I think it is?”

Thea follows his gaze to one of the work tables. The object laid out on it, white with a vivid red X.

“My partner's project,” Thea says, wry twist to the words. “He was the one who figured out the last few steps to reverse engineer this suit.”

Dick feels. 

This wasn't supposed to happen.

“Why?”

Thea shrugs, picks up the half-finished mask, turns it in her hands. 

“It was necessary.”

********

“Those are Ra's' ninja.”

Thea flinches.

“What aren't you telling me?”

Slowly, so slowly, she looks at him.

“Do you know what the components we've been stealing are for?”

Dick frowns. “Batman said it could create an inter-dimensional portal.”

Thea nods, looks back to the S.T.A.R. Labs facility, crawling with Ra's al Ghul's ninja.

“Did he tell you anything else?”

“No,” Dick says. “He said it was taken care of.”

There had been an implied, _If you want to know more, you're going to have to dig the information up on your own,_ because Bruce.

And Dick would have, but.

Red X.

“Someone came through the portal before the Justice League got there,” Thea says, little frown on her face. “A couple of them, actually.”

Dick is getting a bad feeling about this.

“And by a couple of people, you mean...?”

Thea laughs, nervous. 

“Ra's,” Thea says, “One who's worse than ours.”

Barbara had said there was something weird going on there, but it had settled down relatively quickly, considering.

“And?”

Thea shrugs, fiddles with the hastily finished mask. 

“Me.”

Dick.

“Or, I guess, an alternate version of me,” Thea says, voice going a little sharp. “There's something weird going on between him and the other Ra's. Like. _Weird_.”

Dick blinks.

“Your partner?” Dick thinks about it, about Thea's calls over the past few weeks, eye narrowing. “Wait, is he that family business you were talking about?”

There's a smile in her voice. “Well, we share the same DNA Dick. What would you call it?”

That's.

 _God_.

“We're going to have a long talk when this is over.”

Thea looks at him, something vulnerable in her voice. “Are we?”

And.

“Just imagine what Jason's going to say,” Dick says, voice tight, ache in his chest because _Thea_. “He already wanted to recruit Red X, and when he finds out it's you? I don't even want to think about it.”

He really doesn't.

********

“You're an idiot in any dimension, aren't you?” Dick asks, because wow.

There's a male version of Thea with his arms bound behind his back, on his knees in front of Ra's al Ghul , and he's _sassing_ the man.

They're too far away to hear what's being said, but it's pretty clear what's going on down there.

Ra's questioning the alternate dimension version of Thea, the kid talking back, taking a hit here or there from one of the ninja holding him up.

And Ra's, it's their Ra's, Dick's fairly certain, looks.

Amused, _intrigued_.

“I told you there's something weird going on with them.”

“No kidding.”

Dick's eyes go to where Jason is lying on his side, not moving all that much. He's surrounded by Ra's' ninja, back to alternate dimension Thea, who is doing a fantastic job of keeping Ra's' attention on him.

“He has training.”

Thea _hmms_ , says offhand, “He was a Robin.”

Ah. That would explain a lot.

“What - “ 

Dick doesn't get to finish what he's about to say because several of Ra's' ninja pop up and then it's pretty much a free-for-all, Dick fighting back-to-back with Thea, that stupid kid with Thea's eyes lunging at Ra's.

********

Someone, Dick's going to say Oracle, is a tattletale, because Bruce and Damian show up and then it's just chaos everywhere. 

Fists and feet and elbows, oh, my.

********

Bruce is so very not happy with any of them.

Looks at Dick, at Jason who has a few cracked ribs but thank God for his ridiculous body armor because he's not _dead_ , and Thea.

“You missed one,” Dick says, following Bruce's gaze to where Thea is talking quietly to her counterpart. 

Bruce grunts.

“I know, right? Who would have thought.”

And now Bruce sighs.

“She said he was a Robin,” Dick says.

Bruce's eyes snap to his.

Because.

Here, in their universe, Thea never became a Robin.

Was their neighbor and (legally informally) adopted sister/daughter/friend. (And apparently highly skilled thief, which. Dick still has questions about that whole thing.)

Here, there was Dick and Jason (and for a short time it seemed there might not be a Jason anymore, but for an anonymous tip), and Steph, and Damian.

They don't know how it's like in Thea's counterpart's dimension, but.

He seems to be a little younger than Jason, fair bit older than Damian.

There's a nice little slot he could fit into, if they think about it long enough.

********

“She had her reasons,” Tim says, meeting Dick's gaze unflinchingly. “Remember that.”

This close, Dick can see his similarities with Thea. 

They could pass for twins.

There's a faint glow at he back of the room, the device having been reassembled to send Tim back to his home dimension. 

Bruce had declared the device was to be destroyed , and then, Bruce had declared, it's going to be destroyed.

“Tim - “

“Remember that,” Tim repeats, and that's _Robin_ looking at him. (Thea.) “It's important.”

********

“So a little bird told me,” Dick starts, laughs at the look Thea sends him. “What? Can you blame me? I mean come on.”

Thea shakes he head, corner of her mouth turned up. “Impossible.”

Little bit, yeah.

Thea sighs, looks at him, and.

She starts talking, telling him about traveling with her parents when she was younger. Meeting all kinds of people who would teach her things if she knew how to ask. About figuring out their identities, the night she spend following them around, when she was in Gotham. (That anonymous tip to Bruce that ultimately saved Jason's life.)

She talks about their shared history, finally adding pieces that fit all the strange little gaps that always bothered Dick but never knew how to ask about them. (Worried, because so many of them have to do with her parents, that year she pent traveling after their deaths. Retracing their steps on past trips they'd gone on, and coming back quieter, more grounded.)

That damned _suit_.

“You powered it with Xenothium, Dick. Didn't you think someone was going to go looking for it at some point? I just” Thea shrugs, picks at a loose thread on her shirt. “I beat them to it.”

Enrolling in college across the country so Dick wouldn't think to suspect her. Sneaking back into Gotham from time to time to poke at Dick and the others, drop hints about trouble headed their way.

“That. That's so stupid.”

Thea shrugs, little smile on her lips. “I know.”

And that's pretty much her, isn't it. Doing stupid things like that because they need to be done and no one's stepping up.

Tim tracking her down when he was stranded in this dimension after the Justice League had sent his Ra's back. Figuring out out who Red X had to be, based on what little data they'd had available on him and knowing how Thea's mind worked.

Both of them racing against the clock, trying to keep Ra's from taking posession of the device capable of opening portals to other dimension because that. That would have ended badly, Dick's pretty sure. (End of the world, badly.)

Using the Red X suit to steal the components, Tim working to reverse engineer the suit so they could tackle two targets at once, work faster.

“Why didn't he just come to us and ask for help?”

Thea _looks_ at him, and yes, okay. _Fine._

There's.

The trust between them isn't broken as it's slightly dented, maybe just dinged, because this is _Thea_.

Maybe not a strong argument taken on its own, but Dick's had years to get to know her, and it's a perfectly valid one in his mind. (Thea disagrees, but seeing as how Jason and Cass and Steph, even Damian and _Bruce_ agree, she's just a little outvoted on the matter.)

It might take some time, a few mistakes along the way, but they'll get there. 

“Don't take this the wrong way? Dick says, gives Thea a little shove. “But I'm glad there's only one of you again. I don't think Gotham would have survived both of you.”


End file.
